Star Wars_ The Han Solo Adventures - Brian Daley [21]
“Sensors have painted an unidentified blip, Jessa,” said one of the duty officers, pointing out a yellow speck at the edge of the system. “We’re awaiting positive ID.”
She bit her lip, eyes fastened to the tank along with those of all the others in the bunker. Han moved up next to her. The speck was moving toward the center of the holotank, which would be, Han knew, the planet on which he was standing, represented by a bead of white light. The bogie’s speed decreased, and sensors painted a cluster of smaller blips breaking away from it. Then the original object accelerated, kept on accelerating, and faded from the tank a moment later.
“It was an Authority fleet ship, a corvette,” the officer said. “It launched a flight of fighters, four of them, then ducked back into hyperspace. It must’ve detected us and gone for help, leaving the fighters to harass and keep us busy until it can return. I don’t see how they happened to be searching this system.”
Han realized the officer was looking directly at him. In fact, everybody in the command post was, and hands had gone to side arms. “Whoa, Jess,” he protested, meeting her eyes, “when did I ever stooge for the Espos?”
For a moment an expression of uncertainty crossed her face, but only for a moment. “I guess if you’d tipped them you wouldn’t have stuck around while they dropped in,” she admitted. “Besides, they would have shown up in full strength if they’d known we were here. You’ve got to concede, though, Solo, it’s some coincidence.”
He changed the subject. “Why didn’t the corvette just put through a hyperspace transmission? They must be close enough to a base to call for support.”
“This area’s full of stellar anomalies,” she said absently, focusing back on those ominous blips. “It fouls up hyperspace commo; that’s why we picked it, partly. What’s the fighters’ estimated time of arrival?” she asked the officer.
“ETA less than twenty minutes,” was the reply.
She blew her breath out. “And we haven’t got anything combatworthy except fighters ourselves. No use ducking it; get ready to scramble. Order evacuation to start in the meantime.”
She looked to Han. “Those are probably IRDs’; they’ll eat up anything I can send up right now except for some old snubs I have here. I need to buy time, and I have almost nobody who’s done any combat flying. Will you help?”
He saw all the grave faces still staring at him. He led Jessa to one side, caressed her cheek, but spoke in a low tone. “My darling Jess, this definitely was not in our deal. I’m for the Old Spacemen’s Home, remember? I have no intention of ever plunking my rear into one of those suicide sleds again.”
Her voice was eloquent. “There are lives at stake! We can’t evacuate in time, even if we leave everything behind. I’ll send up inexperienced pilots if it comes to that, but they’ll be cold meat for those Espo flyers. You’ve got more experience than all the rest of us put together!”
“All of which cries out to me that there’s no percentage fighting the good fight,” he parried, but he burned from the look she gave him. He nearly spoke again but held his tongue, unable to untangle his own nagging ambiguities.
“Then go hide,” she said so low he could barely hear, “but you can forget your precious Millennium Falcon, Solo, because there’s no power in the universe that can make her spaceworthy before those raiders hit us and pin us down. And once their reinforcements arrive, they’ll carve this base and everything in it to atoms!”
His ship, of course; that’s what must have been biting at the back of my mind, Han told himself. Must have been. The turbo-laser cannon would never stop fast, evasive fighters, and the raiders would indeed take the base apart. He and Chewbacca might possibly escape with their lives, but without their ship they’d be just two nameless, homeless pieces of interstellar flotsam.
In the confusion of the